


With These Broken Wings I've Fallen

by Lark (Larkaidikalikani)



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluffy, Wings, post s03e02
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-28 15:00:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12609240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larkaidikalikani/pseuds/Lark
Summary: Chloe and Lucifer are on another case in hot pursuit of a murderer when they get trapped in a freezing cave. Lucifer must make a choice - protect his dearest friend, or pretend his wings are still severed from his body. He was ready to show her his demon face, but this may be too much for him. Set post 3x02.





	1. Frozen

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd and my first fic I've dared to publish. Please be nice :)
> 
> And yes, I ripped off a Nickelback song for the title. Fight me.

Lucifer shivered and pulled the lapels of his suit jacket closer around him. “It’s bloody cold!” he complained. 

“You could help,” his detective replied grouchily, kneeling on the icy ground and attempting to set light to the kindling she’d gathered. “You’re the Devil, shouldn’t you be able to set this shit on fire magically or something?” she continued sarcastically.

“Ha-bloody-ha, it doesn’t work like that. Oh for dad’s sake, let me.” He gave up trying to tuck his slim-cut jacket around him more securely and shuffled over to her, impatiently grabbing the knife and rock that she’d been attempting to create sparks with. Chloe threw her hands up in the air in a dramatic expression of exasperation (ignoring his usual references to being the actual devil with practiced ease) and sat down more comfortably, crossing her legs and wrapping her arms around herself. Within a couple of moments, Lucifer somehow managed to produce sparks that quickly caught on the dried leaves and sticks they’d gathered on the cave floor. Flashing a smug grin at Chloe, he got on his hands and knees and blew gently on the tiny flame.

Chloe tried not to stare at his ass.

Instead she contemplated how they’d gotten into this mess; it was all Lucifer’s fault, obviously, with his tendency towards being, well, him.  
They’d been tracking a man who had butchered two young women, gruesomely leaving their severed heads on their beds for the poor girls’ parents to find in the morning. The investigation had led them to the condemned house where the beheadings had taken place with an honest-to-god homemade guillotine, and a wall of pictures of the two victims and a third mystery girl who they assumed to be the next one on the list.

Ella had worked her magic and found security footage from a convenience store across from the building showing a black SUV being loaded with black plastic bags by a tall, bearded man with wild looking hair. A stray fingerprint from inside the house identified the man as Robert Daniels, who had previously served time for assault. An APB was put out and the car was quickly spotted in Griffith Park, so Lucifer and Detective Decker had set out to investigate.

Which led to their current predicament. They’d found a fresh blood trail leading from the SUV, and Lucifer took off after it as Chloe yelled at him to stop. She chased after him into one of the many caves dotting the canyon without thinking and straight into the man they were searching for. Daniels was armed, and the ensuing firefight triggered a rockslide as he attempted to flee the cave, crushing him under the small mountain that fell and blocked the cave entrance.

Lucifer sat back from the fire, startling Chloe from her thoughts and dammit she’d been staring at his butt the whole time, hadn’t she, and gestured for Chloe to pass him one of the small branches they’d gathered together. Scooting closer, she picked up the pile and passed him one at a time as he fed the growing fire. A small crack at the top of the rock pile blocking the entrance provided an escape route for the smoke. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, huddled not quite touching side by side against the cold. 

“So when do you think they’ll get us out of here?” Lucifer mused, poking at the fire.

“The department will track the GPS in my car as soon as someone realizes we haven’t checked in,” she started.

“So Detective Douche will probably be the one to find us then,” Lucifer interrupted. 

“Yep,” Chloe sighed. “I imagine he’ll probably enlist Maze’s help too.” She shivered and inched closer to the warm body next to her. 

Seemingly oblivious, Lucifer carried on, “She’s like a bloodhound, we won’t be trapped here too long. Warm before we know it!” He clapped his hands together and blew warm air into his cupped palms. His extremities were starting to be uncomfortably cold but he was grudgingly grateful that his back was rather warm from the tucked-in wings he’d been ignoring the presence of since the tenacious things kept growing back. 

Chloe finally moved close enough that she was practically pressed all along his right side and he glanced at her, belatedly realizing that she was likely colder than he was. Their tiny fire was not producing much warmth.

Lucifer wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer, startling at how cold her skin actually was. She was only wearing a light shirt, perfectly suitable for sunny LA daytime but not much protection in a cave at night.

“Detective, you’re freezing!” he exclaimed, turning towards her with a concerned expression. 

“No shit, Sherlock,” she said shakily, another shiver wracking through her. Lucifer started rubbing her upper arms briskly with his hands as she stared at him, a little surprised by the physical contact. After the whole ‘kissing her, then disappearing for two weeks and coming back with a wife’ incident a while back they seemed to have an unspoken agreement not to engage in too much physical contact.

Ignoring her look, Lucifer stopped for a moment and shrugged off his jacket, then wrapped it around her shoulders before resuming his previous position with her tucked snugly into his side and his arm around her shoulders. His hand gently stroked her arm over the jacket. Chloe decided not to raise a fuss and gratefully snuggled closer, trying to ignore how good it felt to be cuddled up to him.

“You know there are other ways we could keep warm,” he quipped after a moment, waggling his eyebrows at her. Chloe gave the expected scoff in response, and tried futilely to pull away from him. He laughed and pulled her closer, and she rolled her eyes. 

Quiet descended, punctuated by the crackling of the flames. Chloe, finally feeling a touch warmer, had stopped shivering and was now looking around the cave. Lucifer followed her gaze to the dark tunnel that led off into the darkness. It was too low for a grown human to move through at anything but a crawl, but the space unnerved her. The light from her phone hadn’t lit up much when she looked down there earlier, only hinting that the cave extended quite far into the cliff.

“Where do you think-” he began, only to be cut off by a scraping sound coming from the tunnel. Instantly the two were on their feet, Lucifer bent slightly to keep his head from scraping on the low ceiling. Silence descended again for a moment, and they held their collective breath, straining to hear. 

A whispering sound of something moving against the rock came to them, and they backed up to the cave entrance. Out of the tunnel a low growl emanated and the two froze and glanced at each other, white-faced. A dark furred muzzle appeared, followed by the head and forequarters of a very large mountain lion. The human and the fallen angel held very, very still.

The cat’s eyes caught the light, reflecting back unnerving solid disks of light. It came fully into the larger section of the cave silently, its gaze fixed on the intruders. Chloe opened her mouth to speak, and the lion attacked.


	2. Fight

Lucifer reacted. With a shout he shot forward, his wings automatically unfurling with a thwack that reverberated through the cave. He caught the lion mid-leap around the neck, wings mantling to shield his detective from the danger. His feet slid on the floor as he braced against the weight of the vicious animal. The lion wrestled one paw free and its claws sliced into the meat of Lucifer’s left wing, knocking him off balance. It slipped free as he fell, neatly spinning on its hind legs and leaping once more - straight at Chloe, who stood frozen. Lucifer was tangled on the floor in his own wings and he flailed helplessly, trying to free himself.

Chloe was momentarily paralyzed with shock when Lucifer sprouted wings but as the huge tawny cat freed itself and came at her she dropped to her knees and rolled forward, narrowly missing the fire. The cat’s momentum took it sailing over her and it crashed head-first into the pile of rocks at the cave’s entrance. It slumped to the ground, obviously dazed. The detective grabbed one of the sticks from the fire and held the weakly flaming brand defensively in front of her, positioning herself in front of the fallen angel. She let out a single slightly hysterical gasp at the pun, brain not quite functioning properly. 

Lucifer finally disentangled himself and snapped his wings back, pushing hard against the floor to launch him to his feet with a gasp of pain. He stood, left wing dripping blood, next to Chloe as the lion regained its feet and glared at them. It glanced around, calculating, before deciding that fowl was on the menu tonight and making another leap towards Lucifer. 

He let out a snarl to rival the cat’s as he swung around and lurched backwards, away from Chloe, falling once more and dragging the animal with him. Its claws scored his chest, shredding his shirt in the process. His wings flapped against the ground as he desperately grabbed at the cat’s face and barely held the flashing teeth away. 

A gunshot rang out, nearly deafening him, and the cat screamed in pain. A second shot and it slumped in death on Lucifer’s chest. He craned his neck from his position under the heavy body and saw Chloe with her gun pointed straight at him. He groaned and shoved the limp cat over to his left, letting out a shrill shriek he'd never admit to when it landed directly on his injured wing. He awkwardly shoved at the body until his wing was clear of it and let out a groan as he let himself fall back to the floor. 

He lay there for a moment with his eyes closed, hurting, until he remembered Chloe’s presence. She had seen them. His eyes flew open and he started to lift himself up on his elbows to look at her, only to stop and stare down the barrel of the gun that was still pointed directly at him.

He gulped audibly, freezing in place. “Detective- “

“What are you?” She demanded, hands shaking slightly as she kept the gun trained on his chest. Her eyes kept flicking back and forth between his face and his wings.

“I’m who I’ve always said I am. Lucifer,” he said carefully, one hand slightly raised in front of him as if to ward her weapon off. “I’ve never lied to you, de- Chloe,” he corrected. “Please, put the gun down.”

A moment passed, and Chloe lowered the gun very slowly. “Y-you’re an angel,” she said, wonder warring with fear in her expression.

Lucifer made a pained expression. “Former angel, if you please,” he said with a slight groan as he made to sit up. “I can’t seem to get rid of these bloody things lately, but they most certainly do not make me an angel.”

Chloe flicked the safety on and slid her gun back into its holster. She took several slow steps toward him, and knelt. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand and reached out towards his injured wing, glancing at him. His face unreadable, he simply seemed to be waiting to see what she would do. 

Carefully she touched the stained feathers and he sucked in a quick, pained breath. Instantly she snatched her hand back, eyes wide.

“They’re real,” she breathed.

Slightly impatient with pain, he snarked back “Of course they’re real,” and looked down at his chest to assess the damage from the cat’s claws. Following his gaze, Chloe winced. Four large rents in his shirt revealed deep scratches over the right side of his chest, and blood had already stained a good portion of his white shirt red. “I never liked cats,” he muttered, slightly morbidly fascinated at the sight. 

Spurred into action at the realization that he needed medical attention, she grabbed his suit jacket from where it had fallen and wadded it up in a ball. She pressed it to his chest.

“Hold pressure on that,” she instructed. As he did so, she grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. Before he could ask her what on earth she was doing she put it against his injured wing and applied pressure, snaking her other hand underneath the soft feathers to press on the wing arm from the back side. 

He stared at her.

“What?” She asked. “You’re injured, I don’t care if it’s on a limb that shouldn’t exist, we need to stop the bleeding.”

“Have I ever told you that you’re amazing?” he whispered softly. He lifted his free right hand and gently cupped her face, thumb softly stroking over her cheek.

“Did you hit your head?” she joked quietly. They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, light blue into darkest black. Blushing and hoping he couldn’t see it in the low light from their dying fire, she busied herself by checking under her makeshift bandage at first his chest, and then his wing. Lucifer let his hand fall away from her face, but he kept his eyes on her.

“Well, doctor?” he asked finally.

“They're not as bad as I thought. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but you’re going to need antibiotics and probably stitches as soon as possible.” She said firmly. He snorted lightly and smiled at some internal joke, and she glared at him. “I’m not kidding Lucifer, who knows where that cat’s claws have been!” 

“I’ll be fine, detective. Not human, remember?” His grin faltered as she frowned at him. 

“You were certainly not fine that time that I shot you,” she countered.

“I’ll be fine as soon as I get away from you,” he said without thinking. “Not like that!” he protested as she leaned back, offence written across her face. “I mean that you seem to bring about a certain… vulnerability in me. I’ll have my supernatural healing abilities back once there’s some physical distance between us, a couple of city blocks at least.”

Content that he was no longer in danger of bleeding out, she sat back on her heels. “I make you vulnerable? Why?” she asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said. It wasn’t technically a lie, he just had a theory but there had been enough revelations for one day, and he’d break the news of her parents’ angelic blessing to her another time. He carefully moved his wings into a more comfortable position and dragged himself over to the fire, waving off Chloe’s protest. She let out an irritated breath and grabbed the stick he was using to stoke the fire from him and set about rebuilding their source of warmth. She was suddenly extremely aware of the fact that she was sitting in front of him in just her bra, and not just because she was starting to freeze again.

He seemed to realize the problem and carefully reached out to her with his right hand, drawing her into his side and wrapping his right wing around her. She glanced at him, wide eyed, and he felt heat rising on his cheeks. The Devil, blushing. He was suddenly glad Maze wasn’t here or he’d never hear the end of it. He tucked her head under his chin so she wouldn't see and they stayed like that, content to rest for a few moments at least.

They huddled together in silence, watching the fire burn down the dwindling pile of fuel, and waited for rescue.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, unbeta'd so please feel free to point out any gross spelling errors!

Chloe woke with an ungraceful snort, lying on her right side. Blinking, she confused for a moment about what she was seeing – or not seeing, as it was pitch black. She was cocooned in something warm and soft, and it took a moment for her memories to come flooding back. 

The cave. The wings.

She gave a silent gasp, bringing her hand up by her face and touching the wing above her delicately. She was apparently lying on the other one, her head pillowed on Lucifer’s arm. His body was snuggled up behind her, radiating warmth. Her wriggling quickly woke the angel wrapped around her, and she felt his breath stirring the hair at the back of her neck in a yawn. She twisted around to face him, moving carefully to avoid hurting the wing she was lying on. She wasn’t sure about the anatomy angel wings, and she didn’t want to accidentally elbow him in a sensitive spot.

She took a breath, preparing to say – well, what did you say to the angel who kept you warm through the night cuddled up in his wings? She was further thrown off by not being able to see his face.

“Thanks for keeping me warm,” she eventually whispered into the dark. 

She could practically hear the grin in his voice as he replied, “Well, it’s not the most efficient method I could think of, nor the most fun, but you’re welcome anyway.”

She groaned in mock disgust and pushed at his chest. He sucked in a pained breath as she gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth. She’d forgotten his scratches. “Oops.”

He sighed, and she pictured him good-naturedly rolling his eyes. “I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly. She snorted and was about to reply when she heard a faint voice calling their names.

“Chloe! Lucifer!” trickled faintly into the cave. Lucifer swept his injured left wing off her and waited for her to crawl off his right one before sitting up. A faint light was trickling through a tiny gap at the top of the pile of rocks blocking the entrance.

Chloe got up and walked quickly over to the light and yelled out “Dan!” Lucifer tucked away his wings to wherever they went when they weren’t visible and stiffly walked up beside Chloe. They listened carefully and could hear footsteps coming closer.

“Chloe? Is that you?” Dan’s voice was much closer now, and Lucifer loudly called back,

“Over here by the rocks! We’re trapped.”

There was a scrabbling sound of rocks shifting, and the gap suddenly widened. The light was blocked by Dan’s face as he peered into the cave.

“Thank God, we were worried you’d been kidnapped or something!” he said. He paused, squinting into the darkened cave. “…Why aren’t you guys wearing shirts?” he asked, in a tone that implied he probably didn’t want to know.

Chloe glanced down in surprise, having forgotten the fate of her bloodied shirt. She flushed and crossed her arms over her chest and looked around quickly for it. Grabbing it, she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the dried blood stiffening the material as she slipped it back over her head. Sure, she now looked like a trauma victim but at least her boobs were better covered.

She turned back to Dan, whose face looked confused for a moment before taking in the bloodied garment.

“Holy shit are you ok?” he asked worriedly.

“She’s fine, Daniel.” Lucifer said in one of his more obnoxious tones. He had several. Chloe had started a mental catalogue of them. “It’s my blood, but I’m fine, thanks for asking” he continued, gesturing towards his scabbed chest. 

Dan shook his head in exasperation, relaxing a little now he had been reassured of their wellbeing. “We’ll have you out of there as soon as we can,” he said, “I brought some unis with me, we’ll try to shift some of these rocks while we wait for backup.” He turned away from the cave and called for said police minions over his shoulder.

Lucifer wandered over to where his once-immaculate suit jacket sat and picked it up, glaring at it mournfully. He’d liked that suit. With a sigh, he dropped it back on the floor and looked at Chloe, who had been watching him with a pensive stare. 

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. He watched in confusion as she walked over to him and hugged him. He held his arms awkwardly at his sides for a moment before wrapping them around her and giving in to the hug.

“Is your wing ok, being away like that?” she whispered into his ear. The tickle of air on his ear and neck sent a jolt of warmth through him. 

“It’s fine,” he said just as quietly. He gave her a final squeeze and let go, turning back to where the gap in the rock wall was getting bigger accompanied by the huffs and groans of the uniformed officers currently lugging the rocks away. The way the rocks had fallen originally had made it nearly impossible to shift them from the inside but evidently they were much more conveniently laid out on the other side. 

Dan’s head popped back into view, and he seemed to be measuring himself against the hole. “I think you guys can get through now,” he said cautiously.

“Whoopee,” said Lucifer.

\---

After a bit of a struggle and an unfortunate scrape that reopened two of Lucifer’s scratches, the two were free again. By that point an ambulance had arrived, and the paramedics had taken Lucifer, protesting, over to it to treat his wounds which were bleeding sluggishly again. Maze, who had arrived a few moments ago, stood over him with her arms crossed, obviously berating him though Chloe couldn’t hear the specifics from where she stood.

Chloe drew Dan aside, ignoring the looks she was getting for her obviously bloodstained shirt. She’d already shooed off the paramedics and a couple of concerned uniforms.

“We need to clear the rest of that rockfall, Daniels is buried underneath it.” She told him quietly. Dan swore and glanced at the still-substantial pile.

“The CSIs are going to love dealing with that,” he said grimly. They watched as Ella, who’d arrived shortly after the ambulance with the other CSIs, bounced around taking photographs. She crawled up the rock pile and disappeared inside, ignoring calls to be careful from her minions. 

“Oh my God,” came faintly out of the cave.

“Damnit, I forgot to warn her about the mountain lion,” Chloe muttered. Dan startled and stared at her. 

“Mountain lion?” He asked slightly incredulously. Chloe ignored him and went to ask an officer to call the park rangers to deal with the cat’s body..

Ella scrambled back out of the hole in the rock and bounded over to Chloe, holding something bundled up in her jacket. “Uh, Chloe?” she asked, uncharacteristically timid. “What are we going to do about these?” She shifted the jacket to show two small squirming bundles. Chloe felt her stomach drop into her shoes.

“Are those cougar cubs?” asked Dan in shock. Lucifer, free from the paramedics’ clutches, wandered over to see what the commotion was with Mazikeen in tow. They peered over Ella’s shoulder at the now mewling babies. 

“That explains why she attacked us,” Lucifer said, shaking his head regretfully. “What will happen to them?” he asked the group in general. 

“Park rangers will take them and probably rehome them, or they may end up in the zoo,” said Dan. There was a murmur of agreement from the others gathered around, which included several of the uniformed officers at this point. “Back to work, everyone,” he said to the assembled officers. With a grumble they complied, several of them shooting glances back over their shoulders at the adorable cubs.

Ella turned to Lucifer and handed him the bundle, much to his surprise. “Look after these until the rangers arrive, would you?” she said, and walked away before he could protest. Lucifer debated internally for a moment, then sat down on a nearby rock, gently cradling the bundle of CSI jacket and tiny cats. He settled them on his lap and reached a hand in to stroke one of the kittens with a gentle finger.

Chloe felt warmth suffuse her chest as she watched him, and sat down next to him and leaned against his shoulder. They smiled gently at each other, bent over the cubs.

Dan, an uncomfortable tightness in his stomach, stepped back and walked away to help with the cataloging of the area without being noticed by either of the pair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All y'all lovely people are the best. I feel all warm and fuzzy.

The lion cubs were collected in short order by the park rangers who promised that they’d be well looked after. Lucifer had to quietly stop Maze from spiriting one away to become a fierce new pet.

An hour later found Lucifer alone in his penthouse, having been dropped off by Chloe on her way home. He slowly removed his tattered shirt, moving to stand in front of his full-length bathroom mirror. He watched as the scabbed over wounds healed, first looking days old, then weeks, then fading to pale scars. Those would take a couple of days to fade, give or take, depending on how much time he spent around the detective. 

He took a deep breath, and as he exhaled he manifested his wings. Huge, white, and filthy from sweat, blood, and dirt from the cave floor. He grimaced in distaste as he extended the left one carefully, making sure the wounds there had healed as well. He was missing a couple of feathers but otherwise the wing seemed healed. He gazed at it for a few moments longer before the siren call of his shower pulled him from the mirror. He stripped the rest of the way, not bothering to put away his wings yet. As much as he disliked their presence, he wasn’t going to put up with being disgustingly filthy out of stubbornness. 

He stepped into the steamy stall and sighed as the hot water sluiced over his head and wings. He stood there for a long moment, soaking up the heat with his eyes closed before stepping back slightly out of the spray. He eyed his right wing with trepidation – this was going to take some contortionism.

Getting it thoroughly wet was the easy part. He hadn’t groomed his wings since they’d returned and as a result the natural oils weren’t covering his feathers like they should. His wings should roll water right off them (he refused to even mentally compare himself to a duck), but now his feathers just soaked up the water from the shower. He grabbed a light body soap and read the label for a moment before snorting lightly. What was he expecting, a label that said, “safe for wing use”? He shrugged mentally and squeezed out a bit of the soap and lathered it into his right wing. He refused to acknowledge that it felt amazing to finally look after the feathery appendages that had been forced on him. 

Getting the back side of the wing soaped up was a challenge; he ended up twisting his back uncomfortably far while anchoring the wrist joint of the wing low against a shelf on the wall. Feeling like an idiot and glad no one could see him, he rinsed the wing and repeated the lengthy process with the left one. 

The water at his feet turned a murky red-brown as all the dirt and blood washed away. The feathers shining white once more, he washed the rest of his body clean of the cave.

He turned the shower off and stepped out onto the plush bath rug, grabbing a towel before pausing a moment to unhook his wing where it caught on the shower door. Sighing in frustration he rubbed them with the towel as best he could, swearing when he accidentally rubbed a feather the wrong way. He gave them an irritable shake, dried the rest of himself off, and wrapped the towel around his waist.

Lucifer wandered out past his bedroom into the main room, beelining for the bowl of apples sitting on top of his piano. Humming a tune, he picked one up and tossed it into the air only to fumble the catch as a gasp from across the room startled him.

Whipping his head up, he was confronted with a rather surprised Chloe who had just exited the elevator. Her hair was damp, and she had changed her clothes. They stared at each other for a moment before they both cracked up, his deep voice in counterpoint to her higher hiccupping laughter. 

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you,” she finally said, grinning. 

“No harm done, love. Except to my apple,” he said with a slight pout directed at the fallen fruit. “What are you doing back here?” he said as he calmed, curious. He’d expected her to stay home with her spawn for at least another day, or at the station to finish up the case’s paperwork. 

“I feel- I mean, I think we need to talk about some things,” she said with a nod at his damp wings. Self-consciously he shuffled them, taking a small step back.

“What things?”

“The fact that you’re the Devil, for one? And for another, why you didn’t tell me before now,” she said firmly. 

“I _did_ tell you!” he protested. “I’ve been telling you since the day we met!”

“Lucifer, you had to know I wouldn’t believe you. Why didn’t you show me your wings before now?” Chloe said patiently. 

A vulnerable look crossed Lucifer’s face. “I only regained my wings recently, and not by choice,” he admitted. He resisted the urge to scratch at one of them, as they were getting a touch itchy as they dried in the warm apartment air. “And as you may recall, I tried to show you my true face the other day in the lab. A thing which my Father has stolen from me, apparently.” He ran his fingers through his damp hair.

“Lucifer-“ 

“I wasn’t ready to tell you about the wings yet.” He looked pleadingly at her. “My face – my ‘devil’ face – is… was something I had come to terms with admitting to you. My wings,” he cast them a dark look, “are something that I don’t want and don’t associate with my identity anymore.”

“But… they’re beautiful, and a part of you. Wouldn’t claiming them fully as your own be sticking it to your father as much as cutting off the first pair was?” Horror washed over her even as she said the words. _He had actually cut off his wings._

Lucifer went very still as he pondered her words. He didn’t answer.

“Lucifer?” she asked cautiously after a moment.

“Hm?”

“Can I, um, touch them?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sniffs* I think I got a cavity writing this. Thank y'all for being with me through the story! Just a short and sweet chapter to wrap things up.

Lucifer was more than a little surprised at the boldness of the request. He ignored the squirming feeling in his stomach in favour of grinning at her salaciously and saying “Ooh, _detective,_ I thought you’d never ask.”

Chloe rolled her eyes and stayed where she was. “I’m serious, Lucifer. May I touch them?” Her fingers itched with the desire to bury themselves in his feathers.

He sobered. Without a word, he stepped forward and arched one of the wings around in front of him to where she could easily reach it and waited, his eyes locked on hers. Chloe, keeping his gaze, slowly reached out one hand and stroked the wing. As she petted him, her eyes widened at the softness and a childlike grin spread across her face. Lucifer was helpless to resist smiling back at her.

Chloe finally took her gaze from his and examined the wing she was stroking. One eyebrow raised as she took in how rumpled and out of order his feathers were, and he flushed slightly in embarrassment as he realized what she was looking at.

“Can I, um,” Chloe gestured toward the mussed feathers and mimed running her fingers through them. Lucifer shrugged, slightly uncomfortable, and nodded. He abruptly walked around the couch and sat down, patting the seat beside him. Chloe got the hint and followed him quickly, sitting down at his right side where she could reach his wing, which he extended slightly across her lap. 

A thrill ran through Chloe as she carefully ran her fingers through the feathers at the top of the wing, near the wrist joint. She became absorbed in her task, straightening and layering the feathers neatly, working her way from the small feathers at the top to the longer ones at the bottom. As she worked, she noticed a slight sheen of oil on her fingers that was spreading lightly across the feathers. It very light and seemed scentless (she figured it would be weirder than this already was if she stopped to sniff her fingers), but the feathers were noticeably smoother after she’d gone over them with it. She mentally shrugged and kept working, happy to be doing this for him.

Lucifer watched her quietly, entranced by the light on her face as she worked gently on his wings. He’d not trusted anyone to do this for him for literal millennia, since before the Fall. He’d also never had anyone but a family member groom him before, and he wasn’t quite prepared for the ball of emotion that seemed stuck in his throat at the thought of Chloe, his detective, caring for him in such an intimate way without being asked – he was still floored by the fact that _she_ had asked _him_. 

Chloe finished with the right wing and without a word got up and shifted around to his left side to give that one the same attention. Lucifer was becoming more and more boneless as she continued to work, sinking down slightly in the couch and relaxing his head back. He took a deep breath and sighed contentedly, still watching her. Chloe finished straightening the feathers and her hands stilled on his wing. She leaned back against the couch, sliding forward a few inches so her head was on the same level as his and they simply gazed at each other. Their breaths mixed, the only sound in the silent air. 

In unison, they leaned towards each other over his wing and their lips met, once, then again for a longer moment. The kiss was incredibly sweet and innocent, even more so than their first kiss on the beach so many months ago. Their lips parted, and they leaned their foreheads together, eyes still closed. They stayed like that for several long moments.

“I love you.”


End file.
